IT-Supported Request Management for Clinical Radiology: Contextual Design and Remote Prototype Testing

ABSTRACT Management of radiology requests in larger clinical contexts is characterized by a complex and distributed workflow. In our partner hospital, representing many similar clinics, these processes often still rely on exchanging physical papers and forms, making patient or case data challenging to access. This often leads to phone calls with long waiting queues, which are time-inefficient and result in frequent interrupts. We report on a user-centered design approach based on Rapid Contextual Design with an additional focus group to optimize and iteratively develop a new workflow. Participants found our prototypes fast and intuitive, the design clean and consistent, relevant information easy to access, and the request process fast and easy. Due to the COVID pandemic, we switched to remote prototype testing, which yielded equally good feedback and increased the participation rate. In the end, we propose best practices for remote prototype testing in hospitals with complex and distributed workflows.